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17Aug/102

Adding LEDs to a Japanese Shop

Pictures speak louder than words, so below is a quick tutorial on how to get an off-the-shelf TomyTec Japanese Shop Building lit with LED lighting. In total, this building received 6 LEDs; lantern, side-door, top floor (x2), bottom floor (x2).

Interior Lighting + Side Door

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The trickiest part of this installation was the lantern that hangs out the front. I actually sliced it in half and bored out the middle to fit an LED inside. I also trimmed down the LED with a file to get it to fit a little more easily. This was done with my pocket-knife and I stopped when I felt it grinding metal. :)

Note that I borrowed ideas from this blog and I strongly recommend you check out the work the author has done on their layout!

Front Lantern

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And finally, everything is wired up. You can see the huge hole I accidently drilled in the side of the shop... luckily the lantern covers it over pretty well.

Finished Product

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Comments (2) Trackbacks (0)
  1. Impressive work with that lantern! How long did that take?

    • Just the lantern took about an hour… the rest was spent waiting for glue to dry.
      Actually, I nearly spent the most time attempting to disassemble the building. It seems that (I don’t actually remember the maker, I think it’s TomyTec) jammed in the ‘second level’ divider very well and there is no simple way to get it out. In the end I had to bend and flex the entire building to gain access.

      Also, I must point out that I stole the lantern idea from here:
      http://tounosawa.exblog.jp/12016741/
      The Tounosawa Blog has some amazing work on scenery detail and yes, I am guilty of borrowing a few ideas :)


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